


Amends

by MiyabiDreams



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-25
Updated: 2013-09-25
Packaged: 2017-12-27 14:23:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/979963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiyabiDreams/pseuds/MiyabiDreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short work from Tavros' point of view, based upon a Pesterchum-based roleplay session.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Amends

Standing alone on the cliffside always cleared my head when I was little. Well, before I was walked off of it and paralyzed. After that, not so much... Now though, I like this view. The ocean stretching out in front of me serenely and the yellow sand of the beach glittering up at me make me feel like maybe things are a little normal.

It's been half a sweep since the end of the game. I'm almost an adult now, but it doesn't really feel like it. I'm not the only one that tried to return to things as usual when we went home, but it's obvious that not all of us are doing very well. Karkat's stopped speaking to most of us. Equius and Nepeta...well, the last I heard about them, they were occupying the same hive. Aradia and I still chat sometimes, but she's pretty distant most days. Sollux never really talked much to me in the first place and now he doesn't at all. Same with Feferi and Eridan, but I assume that Feferi's taken her place on the throne and just doesn't have time for the rest of us like she used to. Gamzee...I don't know what happened to him. Kanaya and I still talk sometimes, but more often than not she's busy, trying to keep occupied to keep from thinking back on what happened between her and Rose. Terezi's hiding. She has been for a long time now.

As for Vriska...

"Taaaaaaaavros!"

I don't turn around when I hear her coming, nor when her shadow falls over me. She's always been taller than me and has more or less perfected her loom, but nowadays, it's not nearly as intimidating as it used to be.

"...Hi Vriska."

"I haven't seen you in aaaaaaaages. Where have you been?" She sounds a little too happy to see me, all things considered.

"Uh... Home, I guess. Staying inside more..."

"And why's that? You too afraid to do anything exciting? I thought you liked treasure hunting!!!!!!!!"

Running a hand up over my face and into my hair, I can't help but stall a little. I don't like remembering that nearly as much as I would have hoped.

"I'm just...not in the mood to go out and do much lately."

She steps up behind me and staying casual is a little harder than it should be.

"I guess I can respect that. Probably. I was just a bit disappointed when you left. Really, I guess I just wanted apologize for everything I said and did."

I pause at that and turn just a little on the spot, doing so slowly, having learned a long time ago that sudden movements were harmful to my health. My eyes narrow slightly as I look back at her over my shoulder. "You've never apologized for anything... At least, not sincerely anyway."

"Do you want me to fucking take it back?" she snaps, suddenly looking ready to shove me back over the edge of the cliff. All I can do is look back out at the water and the light draining out of the horizon.

"I don't care."

"Yeah, well. I won't take it back. Because I really am sorry."

"..."

"I Just didn't see how what I did affected people around me at the time."

I can actually hear her growing quieter. She's not so cocksure anymore. It's disturbing. "You were aware of what was happening, you just didn't care. You were using people to your own ends. You were using me and everyone you called your friends..."

She snorts, and I can tell that she's pretty uncomfortable. "Way to completely make me feel even worse about the subject. It's not like I realized all that already. I really appreciate your help, Tav."

"...I'm not apologizing," I insist, a little less sure-sounding than I actually feel. It's a habit I still haven't been able to break. I'm still not looking at her. I don't want to see her expression.

"Good, because that's my job."

I turn back around some in spite of my better judgment and rub my fingers into the bridge of my nose to try and stave off the headache that I can feel just starting to rise up behind my eyes. I don't want to be having this conversation... But she's come in person to find me. I can't just send her away.

"I just... Why?"

"I already told you, it's because I feel like I should. Am I not allowed to mature?" she asks me, trying to sound hurt but mostly just pulling off petulant. I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes. There has to be something to this, some angle that I haven't surmised yet.

"It's just kind of unprecedented, ok?"

"Yeah, ok, I know. But do you at least accept it????????"

I have to take a few moments before I reply, "I'm trying to."

I hear her stamp her foot on the ground like a frustrated wriggler and have to stop myself from pulling a small smirk. "Ugh, what can I do to prove it?" she demands, and I can feel her trying to resist the urge to snoop in my mind for the answer. I have to admit, I appreciate the gesture.

"I don't know, I'm sure you can think of something though. You're smart like that."

"Well, we both know by now that kissing you gets us nowhere since you're such a wriggler," she huffs and I can see it in my mind, her crossed arms and stubborn face and pursed lips. I've had quite a bit of practice up to now retaining my composure in the face of her verbal harassment, and when I reply I can tell that she's disappointed that I haven't risen to her baiting.

"Yeah, see, that's the kind of thing that makes me kind of doubt the sincerity of the apology."

"Come oooooooon Nitram," she whines, obviously frustrated, "You know how I am. Do you realize how big it is that I'm even trying to apologize?

"I've been trying to believe you weren't really that horrible my whole life up to now, but...you've never once proven me right," I reply quietly.

The next time she speaks up, it sounds like she's struggling to control her breathing. She's stressed, and there is a sick satisfaction that comes with that.

"Look, I fucking get it, alright? I'm a shitty troll, a shitty pirate, a shitty matesprit, a shitty everything. I admit that I fucked up everything, and everyone. I'm just a pathetic excuse for a cerulean blood, for a descendant of the great Marquise. It's an offense to her that I ever used her name in FLARP. Nothing I did was ever worthwhile, it was all just a big waste of all our time."

That makes me pause. On the surface, her rant is somewhat petty, an attempt at guilt-tripping and honestly, it's somewhat hard to stomach. When I reply though, I pick my words and speak quietly, hoping she's actually listening: "I never said it was a waste."

"I paralyzed and killed the only person that I ever had red interest in-" She pauses, but whether it's to stop herself or to answer me, I'm not quite sure. "You think so?" she asks, clearly suspicious, but I can hear the thin note of hope in her voice.

"It was hurtful," I start, "But...It advanced us in the game..."

"Oh. Thank you. I mean, I knew I wasn't that bad. But that's sweet of you. And I don't deserve it."

I turn to face her fully again, raising my hands with my palms up in a supplicating gesture. This is...weird, especially for someone like her. Bringing her back around at least a little would be necessary if we were to continue this without it dissolving into self-loathing to rival Karkat's. "It wouldn't have ended if it hadn't been for what you did," I reply and approach her, stopping a few feet away. "I guess I have to say thanks...You did what was necessary. Your methods were kind of heartless, but... Yeah," I finish lamely. She stares at me, then inflates a bit.

"Wait, so I apologized for nothing????????"

I stare at her.

"Shit, I mean, I apologize for the heartless and harmful stuff. But not the outcome. I should have gone about all that in a different way."

It's all I can really ask of her on that front. I change the conversation back to something that had been on my mind for a while before this outburst. "My only real question is why now? You had no regrets back when I first left..."

"I had to think about it," she says after a few moments of thinking and collecting herself. "It takes a lot for me to actually build up enough confidence to accept my faults. But you don't understand, Tav. I regretted everything I did. All the time. I just didn't show it. I kept it hidden under more and more shit."

"But you kept doing it... Why would you do that if it was hurting you too?"

Vriska crosses her arms, looking legitimately uncomfortable once more, muttering, "I looked at it as punishment." She coughs a bit and looks away. What, she didn't say something totally lame, not at all.

I look back at her with a soft frown, then step forward and gingerly wrap my arms around her, feeling the weight that she's lost over the last sweeps. She obviously hasn't been eating much. She blinks a bit and stands rigid, too guilty and afraid to do anything.

"Tav, stop that."

"No."

She pouts but buries her face between my shoulder and neck, defeated. After a moment, she muffles against my shirt, "So do you accept my apology or what?"

"Still trying," I murmur in return as my cheek comes to rest against the side of her head. "I know I'll be able to eventually. Since uh... I know you mean it."

I can feel her relaxing. "That's really all you need to do. I don't expect much. I just want you to know that when we became matesprits, it's not just because I wanted to mirror Mindfang... As hard as it may be to believe, I do pity you."

I'm not sure what to say anymore at this point. I reach up and tentatively brushed a lock of hair back away from her face, wondering not for the first time how she could stand having so much of it. She has a beautiful face, if rather worn from what she does to herself.

"I happen to like my hair that way, thank you very much."

"Stop reading my mind," I huff, but I can't help but crack a soft smile. She looks a little flustered and it only makes the smile wider.

"Shit, yeah. That's also a thing I'm working on. But I can't help it. It just happens." She chuckles a bit, and I find myself admitting that it's nice to hear it.

"Yeah, I know."

"But you are really cute when you're angry," she adds.

"You're full of it," I reply.

"But I mean it."

At this point I'm lifting myself up some on my mechanical toes to look her straight in the face. "You know I'm probably never going to believe you when you say things like that," I point out, then lean forward and pressed a real, voluntary, rather chaste kiss to her lips then turn and go back to the cliffside to settle back down on the ground. She'd seemed confused, but she'd kissed me back for that moment. She follows me to the ground, wrapping her arms around me. She sounds genuinely happy.

"I know I don't deserve this so thank you."

"Believe it or not, in spite of what I said, I do care," I sigh and lay a hand against her arm.

"I appreciate it very much."

I scoot over some where I sit on the cliff by my hive and look out over the water with my hands resting together in my lap. She takes the wordless invitation and sits next to me and looks out at the darkened horizon, our shadows stretching out toward the water over the sand whose color had drained as the sun had begun to set behind me.

"Hey... You ever think about what might have happened if we never played the game?"

She thinks about this for a few moments. "Often, yeah. What about you?"

"Sometimes."

I reach over slowly and lay my hand over the top of hers. I smile faintly when she blushes a bit and turns her palm up to curl her fingers around my hand.

"Do you think we would have been happier?" she asks quietly. I adjust my hand to lace my fingers between hers loosely, my thumb rubbing over hers as I think about this.

"Maybe, but then we wouldn't have gotten to learn as much as we have about ourselves, y'know?"

"We could have learned about each other in different ways," she points out, and I have to stop myself from reading into that in perverted ways.

"Yeah, but it probably wouldn't have ended up the same."

After a minute, she continued, "Do you think we would have been friends?"

"...I don't know."

"Would you have been happier that way?"

"If we'd been friends?"

"No, if we weren't. If we had never met."

"Oh. Well...maybe, but I'm pretty sure someone else would have come along to torment me in one way or another," I chuckle, trying to help her feel a little better, a little less existential. "So, I think I'll stick with my known quantity rather than speculate about an unknown." When she smiles I'm able to relax a bit, leaning back on my free hand as the other tightens around hers.

"You're probably right in that. If anyone tormented you, it should be me. Which, again, I'm sorry for."

I sigh. "You really don't have to keep apologizing."

"I need to make up for all that somehow," she argues, pouting at me once again, but I don't give her the chance to keep it up. I dust my hand on the thigh of my shorts then lay it against the side of her jaw and turn her face toward me, taking her lips once more in a firmer kiss that she immediately pushes back into.

Finally it feels like things are falling into place for me. And I'm happy.


End file.
